ECO is pleased to see that a draft text with options for the mitigation work programme was issued by co-facilitators. It is great to start discussing from a concrete basis, but there are still too many options. We are closely following your efforts (well, at least from a few of you) to try to refine them. Hang in there friends, this is important for all the peoples and ecosystems of the world and also for your children and grandchildren. It’s our last best chance to keep 1.5 within reach; we can’t rely only on the GST to do that. We know you are as tired as we are and we want to help your work by pointing out what we like and what we don’t like in the current text. Tiredness should not be an excuse not to pay attention to the potential and risks of the options on the table.
Like:
- Mentions CBDR-RC, equity and fair shares; music to our ears!!!!
- Stressing the urgency to peak at the latest by 2025
- Just transitions that promote sustainable development and the eradication of poverty
- Importance of being informed by the best available science
- Fair and equitable distribution of the carbon budget
- NDC implementation and investment strategies: very interesting, getting to real action. The point on an actionable list of solutions that Parties can apply to enhance mitigation ambition and implementation, including identification of barriers and challenges under thematic areas, is also welcome.
- Reporting by international cooperative initiatives of progress against their collective goals: that will enhance transparency of initiatives that are being launched at every single COP
- Alignment of policies and incentives for protecting, conserving and restoring forests and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems with the Paris Agreement temperature goal: we are finally talking about nature. We know that natural carbon sequestration won’t do the trick without decarbonization, but we also know we don’t get to 1.5°C without nature.
- Human rights, gender and social inclusion challenges and environmental implications of growing emissions gaps and insufficient mitigation action: we will give you many <3s if this one makes it through your conversations
- Developed countries should take the lead – for ECO that is a no-brainer but we would also like to see a gentle nudge to the G20 (after all 80% of global emissions come from them)
- There are options for the programme to last till 2030 or till we close the emissions gap (ohooo)
- SDGs and support are also there
- A sectoral approach based on sectors and subsectors of 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
- Provision of finance, technology and capacity-building support to developing countries for implementing nationally determined contributions – We love it
- Alignment of NDCs with LT-LEDS: fundamental
Don’t like
Options of 1 year or 2 years for the duration of the programme. You had 5-6 years to do your NDCs with 2030 targets and they will reduce only 3.6% of emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 (IPCC said we need a 43% reduction). ECO trusts in your dedication but ECO does not trust you’ll do the magic in 1-2 years.
At COP 26 a year ago, rather than committing to phase out fossil fuels, countries agreed only to a weak “phasedown” of “unabated” coal and a phase-out of “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies – a decision marred by so many qualifiers that it failed to reflect the gravity of the climate crisis and left LNG-tanker-sized loopholes for the fossil fuel industry. That same language is now in the new draft text. ECO knows you can do better than that!
A mitigation work programme at COP 27 needs to close those loopholes, clarify that enhancing ambition can only be done by phasing OUT fossil fuels, and ensure that any new decisions and commitments do not contain loopholes, such as carve-outs for “abated” fossil fuels. To be clear: No amount of CCS or blue hydrogen can enhance ambition!
Not so sure:
Decides to establish a committee, consisting of Party representatives and technical experts, to carry out the work programme [and requests the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation to recommend a draft decision on this matter for consideration and adoption by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement at [its fifth session (November 2023): hmmm, we need to give this one some serious thought – is another body really needed, and is it this who is going to scale up ambition? Will the discussions delay the implementation of the MWP? (NO, PLEASE). How is this body different from the others in the Convention?
Closing Remarks
ECO is looking forward to seeing how far you got. As of now, the text has basically everything on everything and too many thematic options. We hope we will not end up with a 1 or 2 year talk-shop; we need a robust Mitigation Work Programme that really enhances ambition within this decade and we are counting on you for that.